Self congratulation rapidly evaporated when I connected the bike up to my car battery - the starter didn’t work. Trying to turn the engine over revealed that it was locked up solid. After I’d stripped down the bike, removed the motor and the cylinder head, I found out that the pistons were locked solid in the barrel. The guy had obviously fallen off because the motor seized up.
It took me a week to track down a breaker with a stripped motor - I paid forty notes for a set of pistons that required extensive cleaning but were basically sound. A long weekend, and everything was back together. Pressing the starter button for five minutes resulted in some encouraging noises, then she coughed out some black fumes, then the motor ran. Hurray!
Elation disappeared when I realised that the cams weren't going to stop clattering and the fumes weren't going to clear up. It eventually ere that the only thing low mileage about the XJ I'd bought from the breakers was the clock! Both cams were well worn and the cylinder head wasn't flat. Seventy notes for a used complete head was the least expensive way I could find to fix that.
Anyway, I eventually pulled it all back together and got the thing to run properly. Then my problems really began. On my first ride everything went completely dead - when I was sixty miles away it died on me. The battery was dead. I assumed it was knackered from standing around. I actually bought a new one for thirty quid. But it turned out that the alternator wasn't charging. Another £35 for rewinding. Of course, the rectifier was burnt out as well; five quid for a car one took care of that.
The XJ was becoming very expensive and I was seriously considering selling it before anything else happened. This was a pity because it was great fun to ride. I found the suspension and chassis contributed to a very taut feel and it was dead easy to chuck through the bends and stable in a straight line. And the motor had a great gob of power around six grand that gave a lovely kick in the pants at about eighty.
It has one of those useful motors that punch out reasonable power at low revs, it'll potter along without giving offence, but wring the balls off the motor and it'll shift like someone's sneaked some nitro into the cylinders. For a lot of the time I just used it for commuting back and forth to work. In that mode it'll do around 60mpg, this dropped to as little as 40mpg if I used all of the 130mph performance, which I only managed on early morning motorway jaunts.
For an old style multi with two valves/cylinder and no water cooling, the XJ’s ability to cruise along at 100mph is quite astonishing. It only shows its age with the intrusive secondary vibes beyond 80mph, but as an old Brit bike owner this doesn’t really bother me. In fact, the XJ has the same kind of taut feel as many of the better old British bikes (some of the bad ones make the worst of the Japs feel good to ride) with the bonus that the suspension soaks up a lot more bumps than the British stuff.
I'd actually put 3000 miles on the bike when it started to wobble above 75mph. The monoshock linkages were shot and grabbing the end of the swinging arm showed half an inch of movement. More money down the drain. No sooner had I fixed that than the chain was shot - I hoped it was just the chain causing the missed changes. I once spun the motor right past the redline when I fluffed a first to second change when I was trying to put a Golf GTi in its proper place. I had to really go for it to catch him up.
Beyond that magic six grand the motor sounds noisy and the exhaust takes on a GP growl (rusted baffles don’t help here) - | howled past the VW like it was standing still, and straight past a jam sarnie. Well, I wasn’t going to stop and say hello, so screwed it on some more and lost them before they could get going through the heavy traffic. One up for the XJ.
Another memorable ride was up some Welsh valleys in the company of a certified nutter on a GPz550, who didn’t appear to realise that the sheep were too dim witted to leap out of the way of crazed motorcyclists. You know the kind of thing, the bike’s into maximum lean in a hairpin bend, the bike over as far as it will go without scraping up the tarmac, with a huge drop on one side of the road, when suddenly the road is full of sheep. The twin discs are very useful in this kind of situation, as they kill the speed as effectively as hitting a brick wall.
Treated to vicious braking, the Yam tends to sit up a little bit and wants to go straight off the road - but it’s far from terminal because it only takes a little muscle on the handlebars to pull her back on line. Under very bad conditions - a bumpy road, far too much speed and an adverse camber - the rear wheel starts chattering when braking hard. But that’s it does, it doesn’t go bouncing off the road but stays exactly on line. This has only happened twice when the monoshock linkages have been in good condition so I shouldn't really complain.
The brakes have always been adequate when coping with the usual dumbo tin box drivers who wouldn't see a motorcyclist if he was wearing a flashing light on his helmet and waving a red flag. A dubious character who I occasionally give a lift has taken to whacking the roof or bonnet of cars that try to cut us up. On one occasion this irritated an Avenger driver so much that he swerved his car over to the wrong side of the road and tried to catch us up. Of course, he didn’t have much hope in such an old heap, but I led him on a little by holding back on the power until I saw the lights up ahead changing to amber and had to drop down a few gears to avoid a fight. I just went through as red came up, the Avenger must have cut up a lot of traffic to follow us. The guy must have been really crazy because he didn’t back off.
It wasn’t till I wound the bike up to the ton that he began to fall back. Up ahead I saw a cop car, so I had to brake hard - my passenger's weight shoved me right into the tank. The bike braked in a dead straight line and I pulled in a car behind the police. The Avenger hadn't a chance, he skidded past on the wrong side of the road and must have lost his licence at the very least - I thought it prudent to turn off into the back streets.
Although the brakes have enough power to lock up the front wheel, there is plenty of feel there to avoid that. They also work well in the wet with none of the dreaded delay. Some sponginess was removed by replacing the brake fluid and fitting Goodridge hoses. The rear disc isn't my favourite back brake but it does its job alright. The wheels are difficult to clean and pick up all the road dirt.. They also oxidize ridiculously easily, as do the forks, unpainted engine bits and carbs.
I can’t really comment on the paintwork as the bike was resprayed, although I’ve seen machines with more than 50k on the clock that still look good. The cute half fairing offers no protection to the hands but does throw the wind up and over my helmet, so it’s not just pretty. It does take a bit of the pressure off at 90mph plus speeds. The riding position is a brilliant compromise between town and motorway riding. The flattish bars and slightly rear set footrests are comfortable at high speeds and leave the bike easy to throw about in traffic, despite the somewhat overweight nature of the Yam. Those 460lbs and discs that stick on at walking speeds make it a real hernia inducing pig. Anyone for reverse gear?
Down own at the local drag strip (read deserted country road late at night) the XJ can shift off the line almost as fast as the GPz, only the graunching vibes when revving the engine in neutral dissuade me that this is a good idea. The clutch also starts slipping after a few wild starts, and it's apparently not all that strong a component, although I’ve never had any problems except when being very silly.
I quite often think that I should sell the bike, take my profit (much reduced from what I expected and likely to disappear if there’s any new heavy expenses) and buy something bigger. But then I go for a ride down my favourite fast roads and recall just how awful were some of the bikes I’d owned in the past or just how much effort they needed to maintain the XJ’s speed or handling finesse. Then I recall just how easy it is to pay top money for a real dog and decide I'd better stick with the XJ - better the devil you know.
I think the XJ has the basics dead right, re: performance and handling. I'd like to see it lose fifty pounds, have a stainless steel exhaust, a drum rear brake, some Astralite wheels, a slightly wider fairing for hand protection and a much better seat. The latter makes more than a 100 miles a great pain and my girlfriend really hates long distances, but the secondary vibes do turn her on for short distances.
Even my mate on the GPz550 was impressed by the way the Yam goes, so much so that he wants to buy it (he eventually wrote off the Kawa) if and when I decide to sell. You can't get a higher compliment than that. You'll probably have to hunt around to find one, but I think you'll find it well worth the effort.
Martin Field